Officials Figured Hamas Commander Might Be Inside

With the Israeli press expressing concern that an attack on a civilian neighborhood in central Gaza, which killed 12 members of a family including several children, was likely to provoke international opposition to the war, Israel’s military struggled to explain the deaths.

Officials speaking anonymously in the press referred to “targeting errors” and technical problems that were related to the attack, which they initially said killed a top Hamas commander and his family but later conceded killed some other random family. They provided no direct explanation for why they even thought a Hamas commander might happen to be in the houseload of children.

Israeli media speculated that Hamas’ leadership tends to hide underground, and that it was conceivably possible that the commander they wanted was underground beneath the house at some point. There was no information to suggest this was the case, however.

Today’s attack brought the overall number of children killed since the Israeli attacks on Gaza began to 13. That number is likely to rise dramatically as children are among the wounded and hospitals are running out of medication.

349954 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fnews.antiwar.com%2F2012%2F11%2F18%2Fisraeli-military-killing-of-gaza-family-a-targeting-mistake%2FIsraeli+Military%3A+Killing+of+Gaza+Family+a+%27Targeting%27+Mistake+2012-11-19+02%3A04%3A46Jason+Ditzhttp%3A%2F%2Fnews.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D34995 to “Israeli Military: Killing of Gaza Family a ‘Targeting’ Mistake”

Israel's intelligence networks, which include informants inside Gaza, are responsible for the targeting decisions. It seems they received some bad information – as we have seen with American drone strikes etc in other parts of the world. Whatever this event should be called, it was not an "error", at least not in the sense that the Israelis hit the wrong house. They very definitely wanted to blow up the house.

The larger question is by what standards can targeting opponents for extrajudicial assassination while they are in their homes with their families be justified? This seems, on its face, a severe breach of international law. So even if their human target was in that house, the obliteration of the entire family is a dastardly act.